Sway
by bravevulnerability
Summary: "I'm not asking you to tango. Just sway." Post season 8. Written for the Kai's Dance Dream campaign.


She's restless, they both are. But Kate is having a harder time of it, her twin bullet scars fierce in their agony and her body adamant in its protest. Years of pushing physical limits combined with three gunshot wounds, the life saving surgeries that came with them - she's lucky she's still standing. Hell, he's only taken one bullet to the chest and he's barely making it.

His lung is still recovering from its collapse, from the shattered pieces of bone that speared through it with the bullet. Meanwhile, his wife has another hole in her chest, a matching wound in her abdomen.

He's lucky, but Kate's a goddamn miracle.

They continue to beat the odds, but the odds are never in their favor, are they?

"What can I do?"

Kate looks up at him from across the couch. She's curled cautiously in the corner, every limb arranged strategically, so not to upset her wounds. Normally, she only allows this position in the bed, where he is the only one likely to see her coiled in pain, but they're not at the loft. He can't stand to be inside his own home most days.

They attended a joint physical therapy session earlier that morning and they're supposed to be taking it easy, but after a useless nap in the bed, Castle can't seem to remain still. Kate's been unable to sleep at all, he can tell, and she looks uncomfortable enough now to shed her own skin. He can't stand it.

"I'm fine, Castle," she sighs, lying.

"Do you want a pill?" he asks, even though he knows the answer.

"No." Yeah, saw that one coming. "I'm just exhausted, but it - it's almost hurts more to stay still."

He frowns, feels the concern clutch at his guts. It explains her constant squirming, how even after a grueling therapy session, she's remains sitting up on the couch instead of passed out in their bed. "You don't think you pulled something during PT, do you? Should I call-"

"No, I don't… I think I'm just in a difficult part of the healing process right now," she murmurs, gritting her teeth as she shifts. He holds his breath, can't get used to seeing her in pain. "Stop looking at me like that, Rick. I'm okay."

But she's not and neither is he and he _hates_ this.

"Would moving around help at all? Or make things worse?"

She raises an eyebrow at him. "What did you have in mind?"

"Give me a second." He's cautious in his rise from his side of the couch, dropping his iPad at her feet and pushing up with the arm of his better side. The one with the lung still intact and untouched, not reinflated.

Kate watches him, but says nothing as he shuffles from the sofa to her old office. Moving through her apartment as if they never left it.

Kate's cousin who was previously renting here found a place across town, closer to her job, before the shooting, and he wasn't willing to let Kate's old apartment be bought out by someone else anyway. Too many good memories made here. He's grateful for the spontaneous purchase now, for the safe haven her former place has become for them, the temporary home that his loft can no longer be. He can't even look at the kitchen in the days they do spend there.

He left his phone on the desk, near the laptop he brought along with them. Not that it's seen much use from him lately. He should try to write, attempt to channel his pain and anxiety into words like he always has, but he and Kate are still in the early phases of recovering from being shot, nearly dying; they deserve a break and he decided that Nikki and Rook could use one too.

Rick snags his phone, pressing his thumb to the home button, waiting for it to light up before making his way back to her. He searches through his music library while he treks out of the office, dividing his attention between the screen and where he's going. The last thing he needs is to trip and fall, cause more damage to his battered body.

Kate would kill him.

He comes to a stop once he's back at the couch, standing above her and propping his hip against the arm of the furniture where she's curled. Her fingers reach out to catch in the fabric of his sweatpants, her knuckles warm against his outer thigh, but his concentration is heavy on thumbing through the lists of songs.

His fingertip hesitates, hovering over their wedding song, but no, not the right time for that. Not while they're broken and barely hanging on.

Hmm, Sinatra? No, reminds him too much of all the things they can't do in the shower. What about - ah, there, he knew he had a few Coltrane tracks downloaded onto the device for her sake.

Castle taps the play button, slips the phone into the pocket of his pants, and holds out his hand. She stares at his open palm with a brow that furrows even deeper once the crooning of the saxophone begins to fill the living room.

"Come on, Beckett," he prompts, wiggling his fingers. "Up."

"I can barely move and you expect me to dance with you?" she grumbles, but she's gritting her teeth, bracing herself as she takes his hand.

"I'm not asking you to tango. Just sway," he points out, attempting a smirk, but his gaze is riveted to her progress in standing from the couch. Her fingers are almost painfully tight around his, her breath caught between her pursed lips as she unfolds her legs, plants her socked feet to the floor.

His heart is in his throat the entire time.

But then she's upright beside him, her chest quivering with the shallowness of her breathing, their hands in a knot between them. Kate leans into him, her forehead connecting with his clavicle, her lips quirking against his t-shirt.

"I didn't think you still had this on your phone," she murmurs.

Castle untangles their hands so he can band his arms around her waist, low and loose, all he can manage. It causes Kate to sink into him, the length of her body providing a heated layer of weight that soothes the aching spaces inside his sternum.

"I'm always prepared for the opportunity to slow dance with you, sweetheart."

He feels her lashes flutter, her eyes rolling, and then her arms are lacing around his waist in return. Her fingers curl in the back of his t-shirt, their elbows bumping along the way, but he feels her smile flickering to life again when he starts to sway them back and forth.

"Little better?" he asks, dipping his chin to catch a glimpse of her face.

Kate raises her head, her gaze roaming his face, lingering on his nose. "A little. It's - kinda soothing."

She unfurls her fingers at the base of his spine, traces the knobs of his vertebrae through his shirt. She's humming, quietly enough that he barely hears it, feels it running through her body to his with the low vibration of music playing against his thigh.

Her hair is in a messy bun atop her head, wisps of it escaping to cascade around her face, her neck, and he lifts a hand to her cheek to brush one away. She surprises him a little when she drifts in to kiss him for it, dusting her lips first to his chin, then to his mouth. He's the one humming now, savoring the press of her lips, the tentative sweep of her tongue. She moves to the corner of his mouth, pressing her nose to his cheek, before it can escalate, grow to more than chaste. God knows they both want more than chaste, but there's no guarantee either of them would survive that right now.

"You know, if you ever need any other kinds of distractions from the pain-"

"Castle," she huffs, but she nips at his jaw before she lowers her head to his shoulders, rests her cheek to his collarbone. "Thanks for this. Didn't think I'd be dancing with you anytime soon."

Castle exhales slowly, his damaged lung working hard to perform the simple task, and turns his head towards her. He touches his lips to her crown, breathes in the oil of her skin, the salt of sweat left in her hair from her work in therapy. His hand has slid from her cheek, down to rest curved at her nape, and for a moment, he can almost forget that they're both struggling through a recovery, that they're back in her old apartment instead of their own home. For a moment, he's simply swaying with his wife to one of her favorite musicians in their living room. No bullet wounds, no trauma, no pain.

"Once we're healed, I'll really take you dancing," he promises. "We can go to that jazz club that you love and-"

"Castle." She quiets him with the recurring brush of her palms at his back, the sweep of her thumbs, and the whisper of her lips at the hollow of his throat. "This is enough. And I love this too. Minus the gunshot wounds, may even love it more than the jazz club."

He buries his nose in her hair. "I love it all. As long as I'm with you."

"Mm, that's sweet," she murmurs. "But I'm loving it less with you smelling my hair while it's still gross from a workout."

An unexpected laugh rumbles in his chest, too cautious to completely form, but he nudges his nose to her temple instead.

"I'll help you wash it later while we sway to Sinatra in the shower."

* * *

 **A/N: This fic was pledged as a thank you to the fandom for helping raise funds for the Kai Dance Fund. Please consider donating here: www. gofundme . com (slash) kais-dance-dream.**


End file.
